OpenSea Valuation Slashed by 90%
An OpenSea investor is marking down its bet, while Animoca is betting big on Cool Cats. Find out more, plus catch up on the latest NFT market action.
TylerD's Market Summary
GM!
Today's top news includes:
NFT market rallies again on new 3-month high volume
OpenSea valuation slashed by 90%
Animoca bets on Cool Cats and manga
Gordon Goner continues his PFP buying spree
Victor Wembanyama rookie Moments debut on Top Shot
📉 OpenSea Investor Marks Down Investment by 90%
The NFT market may be finally turning around after months of bear market and down-only, but it may be too little, too late for OpenSea.
The once leader in the NFT marketplace scene and seeming web3 giant has seen its valuation marked down by 90% from one of its investors.
This comes at a time when OpenSea's market share is at just 16.7% (by volume) and just days after they announced 50% layoffs.
The Details
Coatue Management, a prominent tech-focused investor, has severely marked down its stake in OpenSea by nearly 90%.
This action implies that OpenSea's valuation is now at or below $1.4 billion, a stark contrast to its $13.3 billion valuation in early 2022.
The markdown reflects broader market sentiments as the crypto bear market led shareholders to divest from OpenSea shares.
Adding to the challenges, on November 3, OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer announced a 50% staff reduction, aiming to restructure the company with an emphasis on technology, reliability, speed, and customer experience.
Why It Matters
The news memorializes something most of us have known for a while now - OpenSea is in trouble.
This reduction is a signal that the platform's investors don't see a path back to its lofty valuations (in the $13B range at peak).
For those who don't remember, that valuation made sense at one point in time. OpenSea was doing $1B+ in volume PER WEEK at peak.
It notched 2 $1.1B weeks in January of 2022, where it would have effectively cleared ~$25M+ in fees.
Now the marketplace is doing $17M-$18M per week in volume, and assuming a 2.5% fee is paid on all of those, it's getting just $450k/week.
That's actually a 98% reduction.
Even a $1.3B valuation number feels high when looking at these current revenue numbers (over 50x annual revenue).
Perhaps the change and rebrand to OpenSea 2.0, combined with the end of Blur SZN2 will be a catalyst for the once leader. We will certainly see.
😸Animoca Bets on Cool Cats
One of the cult favorite PFP projects from 2021 may be coming back to life.
Yesterday, major news broke that Animoca is investing in Cool Cats as a part of its Japanese market expansion.
The news couldn't be more timely for Cool Cats, as anything Animoca touches right now instantly becomes hot.
The Details
Animoca Brands Japan and San FranTokyo have invested in Cool Cats for Japanese market expansion and anime collaboration.
Here's what we know about the strategic investment:
Manga Initiative: Launching a Cool Cats manga to merge with Japan's manga legacy
NFT Integration: Acquiring Cool Cats NFTs to enrich San FranTokyo's digital assets
IP Growth: Expanding Cool Cats' reach through strategic Japanese partnerships
Cultural Integration: Embedding Cool Cats into San FranTokyo's offerings, including e-figurines
The investment is very focused on propelling the brand into Japan's vibrant anime scene.
The investment includes equity stakes and NFT acquisitions, aiming to weave Cool Cats into Japanese culture.
The partnership plans to produce a manga, leverage the IP for expansion in Japanese entertainment, and explore new Web3 integrations, signaling a significant commitment to bridging Eastern and Western NFTs and culture.
Market Response
The market loved the news, with Cool Cats rallying as high as 1.15 ETH before setting around a 1 ETH floor.
That's a 63% gain on the week, and the first time Cool Cats have significantly traded over 1 ETH since April.
The market has always loved the Cool Cats IP, but it seemed the team lacked direction. Perhaps Animoca can push them the right way and back into relevancy.
👥 Friend Tech Trend Tracker
Friend Tech volume spiked 29% on the day ahead of a major new key launch today and on the back of a major app upgrade from the team.
Here are some of the core Friend Tech metrics for 11/7 and their day-over-day change:
Return users: 2,779 -> 2,813 (+1%)
Daily Buy volume: $0.7M -> $0.79M (+13%)
Total Volume: $1.16M -> $1.5M (+29%)
TVL: $42.19M -> $42.48M (+1%)
Highest key: CBB 6.2 -> 6.24 (+1%)
*TVL in ETH terms 22,456 -> 22,532 ETH (even)
CBB once again led top news, announcing the debut of his CBB Bank key coming today at 12 pm ET.
The TLDR:
Self-buying 155 keys and opening it at 1.5 ETH price
Open to the FT public (no WL)
Holders will get an ETH yield of all fees generated by the CBB Bank key, auto-claimable on a weekly basis
Bonuses on yield based on # of CBB keys held
This looks to be another home run for CBB who is sure to see big demand on the Bank key today. The only hiccup? People have been selling off his other key, the CBB Bull, which fell from 2.6 ETH to 2.23 as the Bank looks more attractive.
The other major news - the Friend Tech team implemented an upgrade to make data load up to 10x faster. And it feels that way, for anyone who's used the app in the last 12 hours - a much needed upgrade for usability.
In other news:
Stars Arena has updated its referral fee system, as rumors swirl that a raise may be happening behind the scenes with new owner Jason Desimone
Stars Arena TVL has fallen about 15% from local highs, now at $670k
New Bitcoin City TVL is holding steady at $2.65M as NBC maintains current 2nd standing in SoFi TVL rankings
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the weekend in NFTs:
Trading volume jumped to $19.5M on Tuesday, a new 3-month high; the leaderboard was mostly green led by BAYC +8% to 30.69 ETH
BAYC, MAYC & Azuki each rallied 9-10% on the day leading notable top movers, with Elementals (+34%), The Grapes (+23%) and Parallel Avatars (+23%) notching big gains on 100+ ETH volume
Yuga co-founder Gordon Goner continued his NFT buying spree, adding a CrypToadz, a Sappy Seal, a DeGods, and a Pudgy Penguin to his portfolio (though the "Gordon Pump" seems to be diminishing)
Shrapnel announced its $SHRAP token will soon be listed on Bybit, driving its Operators NFT briefly up 100% to 0.3 ETH before settling at 0.13 (-40%)
SupDucks briefly rallied 400% yesterday to a 0.16 ETH floor after rumors of an acquisition surfaced; they are holding at 0.11 ETH (+260% on the day)
Bitcoin Frogs led Ordinals action, jumping to 0.073 BTC floor ($2,580)
Victor Wembanyama hit the NBA Top Shot market Tuesday, with his rookie debut Moment opening up at $317 (available in ~1/6 of packs at $79) and holding that floor overnight
Magic Eden is enhancing its support for Polygon NFTs by introducing advanced features such as comprehensive statistics and analysis tools, live activity monitoring, better bulk purchasing and sweeping options, among others.
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
The crypto market rebounded on Tuesday; BTC +1.9% to $35,340; ETH +0.4% to $1,885; SOL +5% at $43.10
$MEME fell 4% on the day to $0.018, and $BLUR also fell 2.5% to $0.362
The Sandbox has partnered with the Banijay Group to bring Peaky Blinders and Black Mirror to the Sandbox Metaverse
Square Enix's Symbiogenesis will host Discord campaigns to determine allowlists for its upcoming mint
🚀 NFT Total Volume
BAYC (3,675 ETH, 30.69 ETH Floor)
MAYC (989 ETH, 5.87 ETH)
Azuki (691 ETH, 5.99 ETH)
DeGods (580 ETH, 3.45 ETH)
Pudgy Penguins (496 ETH, 5.2 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
Nounish Punks (82%, 0.11 ETH Floor)
PX Quest (76%, 0.17 ETH)
Weirdo Ghost Gang (68%, 0.67 ETH)
Gruffters (58%, 0.13 ETH)
Forgotten Runes Wizards (44%, 0.66 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Today is a busier day full of drops.
Two highlights standing out - the Forgotten Runes minting "Watcher's Ring" NFTs to be used in their game for 0.015 ETH (700 in supply).
And then Mount Vitruvius making their Art Blocks Curated debut with Trichro-matic. MV is widely loved in the gmDAO circles and demand will be high for this one. The question as always - who will mint? Collector or flippers?
See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor.
adidas x Bugatti CRAZYFAST (10:00 a.m. ET)
Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
Forgotten Runiverse - Watcher's Ring (12:00 p.m. ET)
Art Blocks Curated "Trichro-matic" (1:00 p.m. ET)
ClickCreate x Cath Simard - At Night (3:00 p.m. ET)
Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.
For all volume and floor price data, see Lucky Trader's Project Rankings page.
For all upcoming mints, see Lucky Trader's NFT Calendar page.